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How women are portrayed in Hip-hop and RnB

A female is usually referred to as a ‘chic’ and is seen as people who are not capable of accomplishing things men are capable of, a woman is seen as a weak person someone whose opinion does not matter in the ‘real’ world. They are viewed as those who should be in the house to take care of household issues, the mothers of the household. Women are also seen as sex toys. In song, girls are usually referred to as those who the guy wants to get in bed, be their wife. The females refer also refer to the themselves as those who want Most hip-hop and rap artiste show women in their videos half naked or even naked. They usually just need them in the videos for sex and nothing else.

In this video, Lil Wayne wakes up to a bed full of women, just goes to show that they were to be played with and he goes on to the next one. Lil Wayne leaves the girls and goes to sit with another girl. In the kitchen we see two girls cooking for Gudda Gudda skimpy dresses. Gudda leaves the girls and goes to another girl this vexes another girl. The girls in the kitchen finish cooking and serve Gudda. The female rapper Nikki with her lyrics tells us that she wants to have sex with this a guy. The woman herself has accepted that that is her role in the society. Drake is dressed like a classy gentleman he goes to the shower and he finds two girls waiting for him. Tyga wakes up with one girl although its one he goes on to take pictures of her as she seduces him. The video describes women as a person who serves and pleases.

In this video the girls wake up not knowing what happened the night before. As the video goes on you will see find the reason. The girls in this video were here for the main reason of sex toys: objects to be used and forgotten. After Ludacris and Trey Songz leave the gambling table they hit the bar. After a little small talk the girls are already all over them. The guys have gotten what they want and they take them to the ‘sex room’ so that the women can perform their function. The next morning they wake up not aware of what happened Ludacris thanks them and leaves probably to never see them again. In this video the woman are there to be sexed. Trey Songz is know for his lyrical content and his music videos he always sings about how he wants a woman in his bed, and how he wants to have sex with her, and how she has given him a good time in bed.

This next video tells you a story of how exactly women are seen the artistes just want to have sex with them nothing else no matter who the woman is. Her only function in their society is to be a sex toy. So the male specie can get pleasure. Nothing else is referred; how a woman is smart, how is equal to him. The chorus clearly states ‘I wish I could fuck every girl in the world’. To them a woman is not seen as an equal to the man and her role in the society is to be fucked.

Female musicians of today show of almost everything, this is because if they had video's that did not have any sexual content they would probably would not have been watched. Take Kelly Rowland's Song Motivation the video shoes her dresses in in really skimpy clothes and boys all over her caressing her body. The choreography does just screams 'sex'.

In popular culture, most of the hip hop music videos have one and only one way of showing girls and that’s just wrong, they are always have sexual content. The women are never really expressed as ‘intelligent’ women people who are not used as tools for pleasure. Some of the female artistes even accept that as their identity and end up showing them selves as sex objects always looking sexy. Its like they have accepted the norm of the society. All listed above clearly show how women are seen in the world of Hip-Hop and RnB. Women should not be treated like that I strongly believe that the should be show some respect and not treated as one to be used for pleasure and pleasure alone.

“Every Girl- Young money."YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 22^nd Nov 2009. Web. 20 Sept. 2011<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGzq2HQ2YRs

“Motivation- Kelly Rowland ft. Lil wayne." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 5^th April 2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2011

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1XozsBN5Z4&ob=av2e

“Bedrock- Young money ft Lloyd.” YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 16^th Dec 2009. Web. 20 Sept. 2011< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ha80ZaecGkQ&ob=av3e>

“Sex Room- Ludacris ft Trey Songz.” YouTube - Broadcast Yourself. 9^th June 2010. Web. 20 Sept. 2011<;

< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SCQbV1S4nAs&ob=av3e>

Final Draft

In the United States, women in politics, business, media, and in many other positions are present, but rare. This is especially the case the higher up the ladder the position is. Popular culture and media plays a strong role in this demographic as it may send the message to women that they are not fit to be in a position of power. Because women are not “fit” to be in the workplace, women are often pressured to be qualified exceptionally so that they would be taken seriously. Women may feel that they have to excel in many aspects just so that they are not looked down upon by men.

The idea of popular culture is debated by some scholars to have been post-industrial, having arisen beginning in the late 1800s, while some argue that it traces much farther back. After all, the definition of popular in popular culture is “of the people.” This is usually associated with the likes and dislikes of the hoi polloi, or common people, rather than that of the elites of society, as far as literature and the arts are concerned. Women’s role in popular culture has been diminished in such a way that they are only seen as the domestic, simple house wife that television and other media have shown since its inception.

This advertisement discriminates and isolates women as being primarily domestic and does not consider that women are capable of more competent roles such as those in politics and business. Playing on the idea that only women are doing housework and also on the assumption that women have to be consuming all of their time doing so allows for the success of the ad to lift the burden of work off of women’s shoulders.

In this cartoon, a gender line has literally been drawn to emphasize a possible huge prejudice occurring in hospitals between male and females. The gender line is meant to divide men and women into two groups: doctors and nurses. In popular culture, men are deemed “smarter” than women, so, women can only be nurses who aid doctors because they would be incompetent otherwise. This cartoon shows how, because of expectations of popular culture, job roles in hospitals are expected to be filed by men and women.

Through all types of media, including movies, television, and advertising, the stereotypical representation of women in popular culture pervades throughout society. The reason that women are represented this way in media may be simply because of the fact that males overwhelmingly dominate the media industry whether they are writers and editors or directors and producers. This means that women have been represented and classified into roles that men have designed them to fit in, or in other words, their expectations and desires.

In present popular culture, women can be seen in other aspects than just a housewife. It is not surprising to find women in power or authority on television or in other types of media. For example, actor Kyra Sedgwick plays the leading role of Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson in “The Closer.” This has now become part of popular culture because many people have begun to accept the equality between men and women. In this way, popular culture today is significantly different from what it was merely a few decades before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kbNbMm_Pnk&feature=related (embed disabled by request D: )

However, men are often linked to women in power either by role of a mentor or guide, a boss, or some other kind of superior. For example, in “Bones,” Dr. Brennan is a forensic anthropologist that conducts investigations in murder. However, Special Agent Seeley Booth often has to rescue her when she gets into trouble with criminals. In this case, although the woman does have a powerful and intelligent role in the TV series, she is still subject to danger and distress and sometimes has to be saved by a more “dominant” male figure.

Conclusively, although women representation in popular culture has greatly improved in relation to being equally capable as men, there are still some discrepancies. Men are still viewed in a more dominant manner because women can still be seen as desirable objects or damsels in distress rather than intellectual individuals. Even though there is no proof that men are any more mentally capable, that mindset continues to pervade our way of thinking by way of stereotyping a helpless, subservient female and then putting all women into this same category.

Works Cited

Magoulick, Mary. "Women in Popular Culture." Folklore Connections. Georgia College and State University, 2006. Web. 20 Sep 2011. .

“Bones~~ Booth saves Brennan.”Online Posting. YouTube,5 October 2010. Web. 21 September 2011. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjDk4JZHqaM >.

“The Closer – “Old Man?!.”” Online Posting. YouTube, 16 September 2008. Web. 21 September 2011. < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kbNbMm_Pnk&feature=related >.

Images

"Female Stereotypes: Representation in Popular Culture." Infographic. Carlisle History. Carlisle, PA: Dickinson College, 2008. Web. 20 Sep 2011. .

Blog #1

Marilyn Diptych: A Feminist Analysis

Subservient, dependent, soft-spoken, well-groomed housewife. This description would likely come to mind when picturing an American woman of the 1950’s. Then comes the image of Marilyn Monroe, the face of the American film industry of mid twentieth century. She was youthful, voluptuous, blonde, flawless, sexy. To society, she was everything a woman could dream to be and everything a man could dream to be with. From her Hollywood career, she seemed to defy the typecast of the stereotypical, confined female. Nevertheless, at the core, she was a typical woman, exploited for her looks, dehumanized, and driven to madness from society’s expectations of her.

Racy film posters from throughout Marilyn Monroe’s career are blatant examples of how Monroe was advertised as a sex symbol to attract audiences to the films she starred in. However, unlike these photos, Andy Warhol’s Marilyn Diptych, created in the 1960’s shortly after the actress’s tragic suicide, paints a picture (both literally and figuratively) of the troubles that Monroe encountered. This piece is a silkscreen consisting of fifty identical headshot photos of Monroe wearing her signature smile, meant to symbolize the fact that the film industry stripped her of her unique personality and instead displayed her as a beautiful object. The first twenty-five images on the left side of the diptych are of Monroe’s “Barbie doll” face, made flawless with excessive makeup, a perfect haircut, and her signature smile. Warhol feels that she appears so falsely perfect that he transforms the photo that he copies into an image that looks painted and cartoonish. The photos on the right side are the opposite: drab, blurry, unglamorous, and overexposed, just like Monroe’s private life. The left panel is how Monroe is portrayed in the media, and the right side her without the mask of perfection forced upon her.

Marilyn Diptych is a classic example of popular culture meeting fine art, a major characteristic of the American “pop art” movement of the 1960’s. Andy Warhol’s first silkscreen paintings were of products like Campbell’s soup cans and bananas. In this piece, as well as the numerous others Warhol pieces featuring her, Marilyn Monroe is nothing more than a reproducible product off the grocery rack. Although the piece does have a deep meaning, the male artist chose her as a subject in part because of her beautiful, famous face that would bring his works great attention. This fact ties with the concept of male gaze and ideas of popular culture and society toward women. At the time, young women were faced with two paths onto which they could steer their lives: being a working-class housewife or a marketed sex object. Both options involved living under the expectations and eyes of a male-dominated society. Monroe experienced both during her short lifetime, and grew so overwhelmed by the physical and psychological expectations that men and society had of her that she ultimately committed suicide.

How does Marilyn Diptych’s portrayal of Marilyn Monroe’s life connect to modern popular culture? According to Erin Johansen, an modern American feminist activist, “Marilyn puts a face on the hardships that women have to face every day in this country - sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancy, abusive relationships, sexual objectification. I think in this way, a lot of young feminists see her as a sort of martyr for modern feminism, as a shocking example of how a woman can be torn apart by the greed, lust and coercion of the men in her life" (Guardian). Numerous waves of feminism since the 1960’s created new educational, political, and job opportunities for women, yet females continue to be portrayed as objects to be looked and undergo male-induced atrocities. In modern media, images that showcase pieces of women to advertise totally unrelated products are widespread, and, likewise, the film industry and artists exploited Marilyn Monroe for her face and figure. Furthermore, although Marilyn Diptych was not directly meant to have a feminist connotation by the artist, the time period and context that it was created in give it many parallels to the spark of the feminist movement. Monroe epitomizes the woman whose short life was crushed by gender confinements and the effects of the male gaze. Her experiences included multiple marriages, divorces, abortion, affairs, and sexual abuse. These are the situations that the earliest feminists rose to overcome, and Monroe’s life circumstances and death were the final stretch of the slingshot before many women began standing up against a male-dominant society. Monroe posthumously became a symbol of the rise of the feminist movement, and the message of Marilyn Diptych contributed to this association.

Marilyn Diptych, along the story of Monroe’s tragic life, precisely exemplifies the effects of the merging of low and high culture on perspectives toward women. The effect of the piece is two-fold: it makes an anti-media, feminism-inspiring statement, mourning Monroe’s life and death, yet is a pure example of pop art that utilizes an appeal to the male gaze by incorporating Monroe’s image. Perhaps it is more than coincidence that Valerie Solanas, a woman who attempted to murder Warhol, was a die-hard feminist (Andy)?

Works Cited

"Andy Warhol." Wikipedia. Web. 20 Sept. 2011.

Krum, Sharon. "Marilyn Monroe: Feminist Icon?" Guardian.co.uk. Guardian News and Media Ltd,

29 May 2001. Web. 18 Sept. 2011.

Image Sources

"Marilyn Monroe." Meansheets – Vintage Movie Posters. 19 June

2011. Web. 20 Sept. 2011. .

Warhol, Andy. Marilyn Diptych. 1962. Tate Liverpool, Liverpool,

England. Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Web. 20 Sept. 2011.